Speakers
(in alphabetical order)
Christopher F. Chabris
Christopher Chabris is Professor at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, Associate Professor
of Psychology at Union College in New York, and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study
in Toulouse, France. He received his Ph.D. in psychology and A.B. in computer science from Harvard
University. His research focuses on attention, intelligence (individual, collective, and social), behavior
genetics, and decision-making. His work has been published in leading journals including Science, Nature,
PNAS, Psychological Science, Perception, and Cognitive Science. Chris is also co-author of the book
The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us, which has been published in 19 languages.
Roi Cohen Kadosh
Roi Cohen Kadosh is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. His main research
focuses on the psychological and biological factors that shape learning and cognitive achievements with
focus on mathematical cognition and executive functions. Depending on the research question, the techniques
used can vary from cognitive assessment, mental chronometry, and diffusion models to neuroimaging methods
that allow to examine neurochemicals and brain structures and functions. In addition, he pioneers the use of
brain stimulation to modulate neuroplasticity during cognitive training to improve learning and cognitive
achievement.
Peter Hagoort
Peter Hagoort is director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (since November 2006), and the
founding director of the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN,1999), a cognitive
neuroscience research centre at the Radboud University. In addition, he is professor in cognitive neuroscience
at the Radboud University Nijmegen. His own research interests relate to the domain of the human language
faculty and how it is instantiated in the brain. In his research he applies neuroimaging techniques such as ERP,
MEG, PET and fMRI to investigate the language system and its impairments as in aphasia, dyslexia and autism.
Paul Howard-Jones
Paul Howard-Jones is Professor of Neuroscience and Education at the Graduate School of Education,
University of Bristol, where he leads the MSc (Education) pathway in Neuroscience and Education. Recent
research has focused on games-based learning. Prior to his research career, he was a secondary school
teacher, then a trainer of teachers and inspector of schools. He was a member of the UK’s Royal Society
2011 working group on Neuroscience and Education and authored one of the first text books in this area
(Introducing Neuroeducational Research). His new book A Brief History of Your Learning Brain will be
published in 2017 by Routledge.
Minna Huotilainen
Minna Huotilainen is a neuroscientist and a docent of cognitive science at University of Helsinki and is
currently
Erik Allardt Fellow at Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. Her work has
demonstrated
capabilities
of the auditory system for perceptive, memory and attentive functions in infants,
fetuses, children
and adults.
Her main findings include fetal memory traces for speech and music, neuro-
cognitive benefits of
musical hobbies,
alterations of cognitive performance in stress and burnout, and
methodological advancements
of neuroscientific
measurements using natural sounds in real-life working
and learning environments.
Torkel Klingberg
Torkel Klingberg is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Klingberg's work on child brain development, education and cognitive training is at the international front line
with publications including Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS and Nature Reviews Neuroscience. He led
the original studies demonstrating that working memory can be improved by training, and leads several large
Swedish project on child brain development and academic abilities. He is head of a non-profit organisation, CognitionMatters.org, and has written several books of popular science.
Sebastián J. Lipina
Sebastián J. Lipina, PhD (Buenos Aires, Argentina). Director of the Unit of Applied Neurobiology (UNA,
CEMIC-CONICET), Professor of Social Vulnerability and Cognitive Development at the National University
of San Martin (UNSAM), and Researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research
(CONICET). Sebastian is a developmental psychologist working in the field of environmental impacts on
cognitive and emotional development at different levels of analysis. The current research projects under his
direction focuses on the analysis of poverty influences on cognitive development and the design of inter-
ventions aimed at optimizing children´s cognitive performance through exercising and training in laboratory,
school and community settings. As part of his work in the area of poverty and child development, he works
as consultant for PAHO, UNDP, UNICEF and several Ministries of Health, Education and Social Development
in different Latin American countries. He is member of his institutional IRB (CEMIC), the Committee of Inter-
disciplinary Studies of the SRCD and Volunteer Researcher of the American Association for the Advancement
in Science (AAAS).
Martin Lövdén
Martin Lövdén is professor of cognitive neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. He does research on the
question of how experience shapes development of brain and cognition across the lifespan. The interactions
among behavior, brain structure, brain function, and cognitive performance are studied by experimental
(intervention) studies as well as with multivariate statistical modeling of naturally occurring between- and
within-person variability and change. His recent work focus on the brain correlates, probed with Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI), of cognitive and motor skill acquisition in humans.
Lars Nyberg
Lars Nyberg serves as Professor of Psychology and Neurosciences at Umeå University, Sweden. He
has been active in the field of functional neuroimaging of memory for more than two decades. He is
the director of Umeå Center for Functional Brain Imaging (UFBI), and a principal investigator of the
Betula longitudinal project on aging, memory and dementia. Since 2008 he is a member of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences. Nyberg’s research is currently focused on the identification of genetic,
brain, and life-style predictors of heterogeneity in cognitive-aging profiles.
Andreas Olsson
Dr. Andreas Olsson received his PhD in experimental psychology from New York University (2006).
Until 2008 he was a post-doctoral research fellow at Columbia University. He then moved to Karolinska
Institutet, where he was appointed an Associate professor and a research group leader in 2011. He is
the founder and director of the Emotion Lab (www.emotionlab.se). The broad aim of Dr. Olsson’s
research is to describe and model the psychological and neural foundations of emotional learning and
regulation in social situations. Dr. Olsson has >50 publications in peer-reviewed, scientific journals,
including Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Communication, Psychological Science, and Trends in
Cognitive Science. Dr. Olsson has obtained several national and international scientific awards and grants,
including an individual Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). In 2015, he was named
a Wallenberg Academy Fellow.
Megan A. Smith
Megan Smith is an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island College. She received her Master’s in
Experimental
Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis and her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Purdue
University. Megan studies human learning and memory, specifically applying the science of learning in
educational
contexts. Megan is passionate about bridging the gap between research and practice in education.
In an effort to promote more conversations between researchers and practitioners, she co-founded The
Learning Scientists (www.learningscientists.org). Her research program focuses on retrieval-based learning
strategies, and the way activities promoting retrieval can improve meaningful learning in the classroom.
Maria Grazia Tosto
I have been lecturing in psychology across different branches of the University of London, in the United
Kingdom. I am currently lecturing at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
(SOAS) and I am an associate professor at Tomsk State University where I lecture in psychology. I am
also course convenor for the MSc programme in developmental disorders. My research focuses mainly
on mathematics, reading, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities associated with learning.